Chasing Death
by october31st1981
Summary: Lily Evans thought she was dying. She was sure of it, in fact.


Lily Evans thought she was dying. She was sure of it, in fact.

Maybe not at this particular moment, where she was lying face-down on the ground, bleeding profusely from a wound to her back. She supposed she'd been taken for dead by her comrades and enemies, as the ground was littered by bodies from both sides of the battle. (She hoped that James had not seen her, for if he had he would be distracted from whomever he was dueling and lose his life for the sake of attempting to save her.)

Yes, maybe not at that moment. Though the blood loss was beginning to make her dizzy, she knew if she could reach her wand lying some distance away, she would be able to shoddily heal herself and return to battle. But she knew she was going to die. Whether it was five minutes from then, or five years, Lily Evans was a soldier doomed to die during her war.

It was funny, how easy it was to place a target on her back. It began small, the simply fact of being born a Muggle-born, but expanded at Hogwarts as she showed her exceptional talents. Sullying pure-blood names by associating with them and spouting her political opinions caused it to widen, and by the end of her Hogwarts career, Lily was quite sure the target had engulfed her completely. With her defiance of Voldemort she had all but shot herself with their arrows.

Someone stepped on her back, causing her to want to cry out, but as she had not regained her wand it would be a danger to do so. She bit down on her tongue until she tasted her own blood.

Blood. Was that what this was all about? As she looked at the blood that dripped out of the corner of her mouth, and at the blood covering the face of the Death Eater lying dead next to her, she saw no difference. Her blood was as red as his, the smell as metallic and awful. And it was no less terrible that he had to die for the sake of this stupid war than that she would.

Yet it was still so. Men and women were willing to send their sons and daughters to kill and be killed, all for the sake of a _political belief_. What was it that made Muggle-borns so dangerous? If anything, they prevented the extinction of wizard kind. It wasn't fair that she and her friends were going to die simply because she had been born with the _wrong sort of blood_.

It was entirely the worst sort of war. There were no clear lines of who was on which side. People were being blackmailed and bullied into joining the fray, and it was uncertain who was turning on one another by choice or force. Everyone was kept at distance, be it from suspicion or for their own protection.

Though they were soldiers, there was no army. There were secret organizations and unauthorized capture and death. There was no order. Battles were waged on helpless civilians. Attacks were made in the dead of night in people's homes, families turning up dead or disappearing completely. No one was certain of the casualty rate anymore.

Lily heard a scream nearby and felt a weight hit the ground behind her. She strained to move her neck and saw with a guilty sort of relief that it wasn't anyone she knew. The girl could not be more than sixteen, but she had been put into Death Eater robes and sent at the enemy with barely any training. Lily closed her eyes and muffled a sob by pressing her face into the dirt.

She felt herself being turned over and nearly screamed. "Please be alive, please don't let Lily be dead," she heard a desperate voice plead. She opened her eyes to be faced with Remus Lupin.

"Thank God," he said, pulling her into his arms for a hug. When pulled away, his hands were red with her blood. "Yours?" asked Remus quietly.

She nodded. Remus summoned her wand, handing it to her. He turned her around so that he could heal her. Remus was bleeding as well, though not quite so much. Several scratches on his face had reopened. His blood, the blood of a supposed half-breed, looked no different either. And yet it was his blood that people sought, either to be used as a tool in war or to be put down like a dog. He too, had _the wrong sort of blood flowing _through his veins, in his own right. "That should do for now," Remus muttered.

They rose from their place in the corner of the battlefield and ran towards the centre of the fight, where James, Sirius and Peter were being outnumbered by a group of Death Eaters.

She would surely die, Lily thought as she took James's hand. But not just yet.


End file.
